Writers › Writer / Poet
Zheng Zhizhen
Ming playwright from Qingxi in Qimen whose hundred-scene Mulian Rescues His Mother became the basis of Mulian opera across the south.
Also known as Zi Ruxi · Hao Gaoshi
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Zheng Zhizhen, styled Ruxi and called Gaoshi, came from a merchant family of Qingxi in Qimen, Huizhou. A county student who failed the higher examinations, he spent years as a tutor around Qiupu and writing at home. Drawing on bianwen narratives, zaju plays and folk tales, he wrote the New Play of Mulian Rescuing His Mother, Exhorting Goodness, in three volumes and 102 scenes, prefaced in 1582 and printed by his Gaoshi Studio. Staged widely in Huizhou and the lower Yangtze, it became the base text for local Mulian opera such as that of Qimen. He also wrote Wufu Ji.
Life and times
Dates 1518 CE–1595 CE